George Gershwin (1898–1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs Swanee (1919) and Fascinating Rhythm (1924). Later came the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924), An American in Paris (1928), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).
Swanee, published in 1919, made George Gershwin famous as one of the major American songwriters, greatly helped by Al Jolson’s very passionate gramophone recording the next year. One million sheet music copies were sold as well as an estimated two million records.
By the way, Jolson was born in present-day Lithuania, far removed from ‘mammy’ and ‘de old folks at home’. He always performed in controversial blackface, much liked by white audiences at the time.
A further boost came with Jolson’s performance of Swanee as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927). He also sang it in other movies such as The Jolson Story (1946).
Swanee is actually the Suwannee River, flowing from Georgia into Florida before draining into the Gulf of Mexico on the outskirts of the fishing village of Suwannee.
Suwannee is most likely a corruption of the Spanish San Juan, as the 17th century Spanish mission of San Juan de Guacara was located on the river, even though Indian origins also have been suggested.
Non-copyright lyrics by Irving Caesar are available here:
The sound clip is computer generated using sampled sounds (AI). Transcriptions and descriptions are not AI generated.
Set contains one score and one copy of each part downloaded as one A4 format PDF file. Copying allowed by acquiring band for their performances only.
The work including lyrics is public domain due to U.S. 95-year expiry of printed matter. Also public domain in countries applying rule of the shorter term, such as Norway, UK and the EU.
George Gershwin (1898–1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs Swanee (1919) and Fascinating Rhythm (1924). Later came the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue (1924), An American in Paris (1928), and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).
Non-copyright lyrics by Irving Caesar are available here: 
